060 No Peeking
The background is white. ; Panel 1 Cadavre and Zane are still in the brilliant, blank white area with the three red lines and the chair. Zane sits down in the chair, turning to look behind him and clenching one hand into a fist. There is blood on his fingers, but not on the back of his hand, and there is blood on the hem of his sleeve, but not elsewhere on his body or pajamas. Cadavre stands to the left of the lines, closing his eyes and bringing his palms together. He says "Mon pauvre Wadsworth. As you wish." The black border of the panel fades out toward the right of the panel, such that there is no border on the right side at all. ; Panel 2. Zane wakes up. He is lying on the cot with the puffy blanket over his body, a comically disappointed and annoyed look on his face. Thin white lines coming from the head express how he's woken up quickly and is surprised by it. The colors are rather muted compared to the ones used in most of the strips, as if a tiny bit of color has been stripped out. ; Panel 3. Zane sits up, looking to the side and saying "*A full night's rest?* Darn it! It must have been this comfortable old cot!" A small curly white line by his head indicates his annoyance. To his left is the desk and the wooden chair that looks very similar to the red one in his dream. There are no signs of the traps that had been set earlier. The reader sees the panel as if we're on the floor with Zane, looking up at the desk. ; Panel 4. A voice from the main room of the antiques store comes through the wide open door, although we cannot see the speaker. It says "Wadsworth? Are you awake? You were sleeping so soundly." Zane looks towards the door. To his right, the bed on which Iris had been sleeping is neatly made. ; Panel 5. The voice from the other room continues, "I started cleaning up without you! I hope that's okay." Zane, holding his dream diary on his knees, picks up his pencil and positions it over the diary. Looking down at his diary, he calls back "I'm up -- let me just log my nightmare-less night and I'll help." The reader sees the panel as if we're looking over the desk down at Zane, who is still on the floor. On the desk is a book that looks very similar to the dream diary that Zane is writing in, with a similarly colored cover, a similar label and about the same number of pages. However, it looks more beat up, with a bent cover, wrinkles and dog-eared pages sticking up. ; Panel 6. Although the previous panels have been slightly desaturated, this panel is highly saturated, making all of the colors unusually vivid and startling. The effect, particularly the green color of the walls, calls to mind the scene with Maris in the diner, where the colors were equally saturated. The voice from the other room calls out, "You need your *journal* first! I found its hiding spot out here." Zane, his pencil poised over the page, looks over at the top of the desk. His eyes turn to tiny, terrified circles and he starts to sweat. He says "Huh?" The voice from the other room says "I left it there on your desk!" ; Panel 7. The voice from the other room continues, "I promise I didn't peek." The colors have changed once again, now seeming more normal than they did in the previous panel or the ones before it. Zane is trembling all over as he holds his diary in front of him and looks at the other diary. His eyes are back to normal, but his face is very worried, and he is sweating heavily. The diary in his hands has a neat brown cover, pristine pages and a nameplate that says "Zane." The one on the desk also has a brown cover and a nameplate that says Zane, but the cover is battered and old, with one corner slightly flipped up, and there are stains around the top and bottom. Some of the pages appear to be slightly torn or dog-eared so that they will stick out, and there are small spots of blood on the edges of the pages. There is nothing else on the desk.